The Systematic Character of the National Socialist
Policy for the Extermination of the Jews: Electronic Edition,
by Heinz Peter
Longerich

3.2 HSSPF Russia South and Einsatzgruppe C

3.2.1In the course of extending the murders into the southern part of the Front, the HSSPF Jeckeln as well as the lst SS Brigade played a major role. The 1st SS Brigade, which was under the command of Jeckeln, moved to the murder of Jewish women when they took on a "cleansing operation" between July 27 and July 30 in the area of Zwiahel.136 In Jeckeln's command to the Brigade it was stated that - apart from Front Commissars - also suspicious "female agents or Jews...were to be handled appropriately".137

3.2.2As a result of this "action", the Brigade reported that they had arrested, among others, 1658 Jews; 800 people, "Jewish men and women from 16 to 60 years old" had been shot.138 Subsequent to this "action", on 4 August, units of this Brigade carried out further "actions" and shot 1385 people under the same pretext, among them 275 women and 1109 Jewish men.139

3.2.3In the following weeks Jeckeln ordered the lst. SS Brigade to carry out further "cleansing operations". Members of the Brigade shot 232 Jews on 7 August in Tschernjychow, 300 Jewish men and 139 women in Sarokonstantinow around 20 August, and "1009 Jews and Red Army men" and in the period between 2 September and 7 September ."140

3.2.4At the end of August, the Brigade under Jeckeln's command carried out a massacre in Kamenetsk-Podolsk which exceeded all previous "actions". According to the event report from 22 August, "a Commando of the Higher SS and Police Leader... shot 23,600 Jews" (men, women and children) within 3 days.141 The victims of Kamenetsk-Podolsk were mainly Jews who had been deported over the border into the newly conquered area in Galicia by Hungarian officials as "burdensome foreigners". The proof that this massacre was systematically prepared is documented in the minutes of the meeting which was held on 25 August at the Headquarters of the Generalquartermaster of the Army in Vinniza. On this occasion, an officer of the staff of the Generalquartermaster referred to a pledge by Jeckeln to complete the liquidation of the Jews deported to the area of Kamenetsk-Podolsk by 1 September.142 From the number of Jews deported from Hungary, 18.000, it can be concluded that about 14.000 to 16.000 were shot at the end of August about 15 Km from Kamenetsk-Potolsk by Jeckeln's staff company, the Police Battalion 320 as well as by Ukrainian and Hungarian militia. In addition, thousands of local Jews were shot.143

3.2.5After the "altogether 44,125 people, mostly Jews" who were shot, in August alone, according to the event reports of the "Formation of the Higher SS and Police Leaders",144 Jeckeln continued the massacres; in the first days of September, in Berditschw, as stated in event reports, "1303 Jews, among them 876 Jewish women over 12 years old" were killed by a Commando of the Higher SS and Police Leaders Russia South.145 The murder of over 3000 Jews still living in the ghetto of Shitomir, on 19 September, in which the SK 4a was involved, must also have been largely Jeckeln's responsibility.146

3.2.6Finally, Jeckeln played a leading role in the massacre of the Jews of Kiev at Babi Jar, where the SK 4a, the Police Regiment South with the Battalion 45 and 303 and a Company of the Waffen SS were involved. This massacre, by which 33,771 Jews were murdered according to the event reports,147 was planned on September 16 in a meeting where Jeckeln, the Chief of the EG C, Rasch, the Leader of the SK 4a, Blobel as well as the City Commander of the Wehrmacht were present. This mass murder was justified as "retaliation" for a major fire in the city that was supposedly set by Jews.

3.2.7Jeckeln also played a central role in the massacre of the Jews of Dnjepreprotowsk on 13 October, where according to the event reports, out of some 30.000 Jews in the city, "approximately 10.000 were shot by a commando of the Higher SS and Police Leaders on 13 October, 1941". In this series of massacres under Jeckeln's personal management up to October, 1941, more than 100.000 people were murdered.

3.2.8This series of mass murders are the basis for the activities of EG C and the Police Battalion placed in the southern parts of the occupied Soviet Union in late summer and fall. These units were already in part directly involved in the major "actions" initiated by Jeckeln. Jeckeln was the one who gave the decisive impulse which lead the commandos and police battalions to go over to the total extermination of the Jewish population.

3.2.9- Erwin Schulz, the Commando Leader of EK 5 testified during his stay in Berditschew (where the unit was stationed between the end of July and the middle of August) that Rasch, Commander of the EG C, had called him to Shitomir in order to explain to him that not only those Jews who were employed but also their wives and children were to be shot. This order, according to Rasch, came from Jeckeln.148

3.2.10The total eradication of all inhabitants of a location, including the women and children by the EK 5 can be documented as of the middle of September. On 15 September, the town of Bogusslaw, as explained in an event report, "because of the execution of 322 Jews and 13 communist functionaries" was declared "free of Jews."149 On 22 and 23 September, the EK 5 in Uman carried out a "major action" in which, according to their own report, 1412 Jews were shot.150 In Cybulow on 25 September, 70 Jews were shot, 537 Jews (men, women and children) on 4 October in Perejeslas and in Koschewatoje shortly thereafter "all Jews of this place." were executed.151

3.2.11On the basis of the generalized order to murder issued in August, the number of the people killed by the EK 5 increased considerably: For the period from 7 September to 5 October, the Commando reported that "207 political functionaries, 112 saboteurs and looters as well as 8800 Jews had been liquidated".152 A few weeks later, the Commando reported that "The number of those executed by the EK 5 was altogether 15.110 on 20 October 1941.153

3.2.12- The EK 6 (sub-unit Kronberger) shot Jewish women starting in October in Kriwoj-Rog, after Himmler had inspected this place on 3 October. On 20 October, Krivoj Rog was declared "free of Jews" (judenfrei)."154 In the event report of 19 November Commando 6 stated that "1000 further Jews had been shot".155

3.2.13- In the area of Shitomir from the beginning of August, the Commando 4 a shot women in great numbers, shortly thereafter also children.156 Thus also in Bjelaja-Zerkow 500 men and women were shot on 8 or 9 August, the Jewish children on 19 August and on 22 August, by the advance party of SK 4a, which was scheduled to go to Kiev.157 According to the reports of the Commando, in the month of August, in Fastov "the entire Jewish population aged 12 to 60, altogether 252 head, shot"158 . In Radomyschle on 6 September, 1668 Jewish men, women and children were executed.159 Also in Shitomir, their main base where a ghetto had been set up, the Commando proceeded to murder all Jewish inhabitants regardless of age or sex. After multiple mass executions in the second half of August with several thousand people as victims, 3145 Jews were shot in the course of liquidating the ghetto on 19 September 1941, according to the report of the Commando.160

3.2.14- The Police Battalion 45, which belonged to the Police Regiment South, proceeded to murder Jews regardless of their age or sex at the end of July-beginning of August. The first victims were the entire Jewish population of the town of Schepetowka, where the Battalion had been based between 26 July and 1 August, 1941; according to the declaration of the Battalion Commander, Besser, made after the war, this involved 40 to 50 men and women, probably however even more.161 Besser declared on this point that he had been following an order of the Commander of the Police Regiment South, who in turn referred to a general order for liquidation issued by Himmler.162

3.2.15In the following weeks, the Battalion repeated this pattern in other Ukrainian villages: among others, it killed Jewish men and women in Slawuta (according to the declaration of the HSSPF Russia South this included 522 persons),163 in Sudylkow (471 dead) as well as in Berditschew (1000 victims).164 When Besser's successor, Rosenbauer, was being briefed on his tasks as Battalion Commander by the Higher SS and Police Leader of Russia South, Jeckeln, he was given very clear instructions, according to his own statements: "Jeckeln said that the order of Reichsführer SS Himmler was the basis for the solution of the Judenfrage: The Ukrainians should become a Helot (slave) people who work only for us. We had no interest, however, in having the Jews multiply: therefore the Jewish population had to be exterminated."165

3.2.16- Also the Police Battalion 314, which belonged to the Police Regiment South as well, shot women and children as early as July. This can be documented for the first time in the case of a company of the Battalion on 22 July in a place in the area of Kovel: in the private diary of a member of the Battalion it is stated that on this day 217 people, among them entire families, had been shot.166

138. Activity Report of the 1. SS-Brigade, 30.7.41 for 27.7.-30.7. ( Unsere Ehre, pp. 197fff). See also BAB, NS 33/39, report 1. SS-Brigade, 30.7.41, for activity from 27.7. to 30.7. See further ibid., NS 33/22, Activity Report Chief of Staff RFSS, 6.8.41 concerning the period from 28.7. to 3.8.41.

139. Activity Report 1. SS-Brigade for the period 3.8. - 6.8. ( Unsere Ehre, pp. 108f). For more details on this see also Spector, Holocaust, pp. 76f.

140. Activity Report 6.8.-10.8. of 10.8.41 of 1 Brigade ( Unsere Ehre, 111ff); EM 59 of 21.8.; BAB, NS 33.22, Report of the Chief of Staff on activity during 1.9-7.9. of 10.9.41. Concerning the involvement of the Police Bataillon 320, see ibid., Report of the HSSPF South of 20.8.41

159. Verdict District Court Darmstadt, 29.11.68 (ZSt, SA 392), as well as EM 88. Further executions with more than 100 deaths each are in evidence for Berdichev, Vinnitsa, Ivankov und Tarashcha, among others (ZSt., 114 AR-Z 269/60, Concluding Report, 30.12.69).